Health Sciences Major

Find your fit in the health care field.

As a health sciences major, your degree will help you start your path to graduate school, launch your career in the health care field or advance your existing career. You'll gain real-world experience through service learning and hands-on practice. We offer the most options for a health care degree in South Dakota, which means you're right where you need to be to take the next step.

Our graduates have gone on to become:

A physical therapy assistant at an outpatient PT clinic

An Associate Director of Community Programs at Yankton Rural AHEC

A flight paramedic at Avera

A shift training officer at Pennington County

An underwriting specialist at Omaha National

A coder at Avera

A teacher and a coach

A FOCUS missionary

Whether you're interested in clinical practice, research, technology or the health care industry, we have pathways that will help you reach your goal.

September 12, 2019

VERMILLION, S.D. – Shana Cerny, B.S., M.S., O.T.D., associate professor in the Occupational Therapy (OT) Department at the University of South Dakota, has been appointed to the Population Health and Occupational Therapy Committee of the American Occupational Therapy Association.

September 9, 2019

VERMILLION, S.D. – A statewide coalition led by University of South Dakota's Sanford School of Medicine that aims to boost South Dakota’s health care workforce has expanded its reach to the Black Hills and western South Dakota.

August 1, 2019

VERMILLION, S.D. – The South Dakota Community Foundation has selected the University of South Dakota Center for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment (CPCM) to receive a Community Innovation Grant Award.

June 7, 2019

VERMILLION, S.D. – Whitney Lucas Molitor, OTD, assistant professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy at the University of South Dakota, has been selected as editor for the Productive Aging Special Interest Section, a quarterly publication of the American Occupational Therapy Association which aims to connect practice and research to inform occupation-centered practice.

May 31, 2019

VERMILLION, S.D. – Miranda Ristau, physical therapy graduate student at the University of South Dakota and former honorable mention All-American basketball player at Northern State University, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, has been awarded a prestigious post-graduate academic scholarship by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

April 25, 2019

VERMILLION, S.D. – Haifa Abou Samra, R.N., M.S., Ph.D., has been named the new dean of the University of South Dakota School of Health Sciences. With 10 professional departments and more than 2,400 students, the School of Health Sciences is one of the largest and fastest growing schools at USD.